"PS What are overdrive pedals supposed to do,sound like an overdriven amp or help breakup your amp?"
Good question - depends on who you ask and what their use is.
As for my purposes, I'm trying to find a pedal that will allow me to get a nice distorted guitar sound at lower amp volumes. The TopHat has enough gain (and is low enough in wattage) that it only needs a little "push" from a booster to get good dirty tones. But getting good dirty tones at lower volumes gets tougher, so I'm looking for a pedal to handle this. I might also consider running the amp clean (or close to clean) and using the pedal to either push the amp or provide the bulk of the overdrive/distortion.
"I think maybe Fuzz pedals are maybe the way to go, lots of classic 60-70's records had them & there are few different types to choose from."
This might be a good choice with a Ric, but a lot of these can be very bass and/or treble heavy. I have a Vox Tonebender RI that I absolutely couldn't stand the sound of, so I modded it to have a bass control and also added a "pre gain" knob to rolloff signal from the guitar (the gain knobs on most FF pedals aren't very useful; I've had better results running them at full and changing gain with my guitar's volume knob. This pre gain control does the same thing, just on the pedal instead of on the guitar). I never finished my mods though, so my Tonebender is not in "functioning" condition at the moment. I do plan on digging it up soon though and finishing the changes.
"My favorite OD pedal to use with a Rickenbacker is an MXR Distortion +"
This is probably a good choice for a Ric because of the way it is setup. The RAT, DOD 250 and MXR Distortion + all use hard clipped diodes to create distortion. The Tube Screamer, on the other hand, uses soft clipped diodes. I never seem to get good tones using any of my TS clones with my Ric.
I'm actually working on a pedal build for my Ric. It's a very simple circuit that uses the same hard clipped diode concept as the RATII and the Distortion +, but with lower gain and slightly softer clipping.
Greg, do you have any sound clips of the Valve Tone? I'd love to hear what one sounds like.
Best OD pedal for a Ric 330?
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soundmasterg
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trancedental
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Well, I just paid more than I should have on Ebay for a Vox Valvetone LOL! so I'll soon get to know if this is a good pedal, although opinions on here & HC are very good. True Bypass is a plus as well. It still cost less than any decent new OD / TS9 RI anyway (that's my excuse!).
I had a Boss overdrive OD2? years ago but only used it for lead boost, so I'm hoping to use my Mojofuzz for that role and the Vox Valvedrive for drive on on some of the rhythm sounds. If it lets me practise at lower volumes with a bit of overdrive that's even better.
I had a Boss overdrive OD2? years ago but only used it for lead boost, so I'm hoping to use my Mojofuzz for that role and the Vox Valvedrive for drive on on some of the rhythm sounds. If it lets me practise at lower volumes with a bit of overdrive that's even better.
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